So I picked up an IPad mini about a week ago and was wondering what tools people would suggest to use with it to help with GMing games (beyond the dice app).

I use PDF Expert and Evernote to great effect, but I still find using a tablet at the table to be a little slower than just using my laptop. I have been toying about using it with Air Display on my mac to show my heroes pictures.

For general file sharing, I get a lot of mileage out of my free 2GB dropbox account.

When I ran me 4e games, GMToolkit was pretty good, especially if you know a little javascript and HTML, you can make some really helpful crib sheets and it integrates well with Obsidian Portal. But ultimately, I ended up using it primarily for it's Character creator and initiative tracker, but I don't think that's the best tool for Edge of the Empire.

Here are the ones I use when I'm GMing:

1. iAnnotate PDF -> Imo best PDF reader/annotator (also has great Dropbox and Google Drive implementation!)

2. iBooks -> Amazing for reading those .EPUBs and other sourcebooks from the old WEG Star Wars game

3. Paper (by Fifty-Five) -> Awesome for drawing some simple, yet very beautiful maps

4. The Star Wars Dice App by FFG -> I love it for especially huge dice pools and doing the rare, yet important secret roll
5. MindNode -> It's somewhat expensive, but I already owned it. It's really great for making flowcharts for campaigns that utilize an open setting and where certain events can happen in different order

I use Notability to organize all my campaign notes…as I have two different player groups it's handy. The only thing missing is a desktop client in case I'm not near my iPad, but you can always email and then cut and paste within the iPad from the mail client to Notability.

Dropbox is handy. Also for PDF viewing I find GoodReader pretty useful.

I'm still waiting for the Mac mini to get refreshed…the latest Xcode doesn't run well on my current mini…and when that happens I hope to start a GM toolkit iOS app.

I used to use a few more apps (Evernote, Mindmeister) but these days only really feel the need for OneNote and GoodReader. Especially OneNote I cannot recommend enough. At it's heart it is a note taking program and while there are other special programs that do specific things better (Mindmeister for mindmaps) it is much easier to just use OneNote for everything - except longer pdfs.

If there is a few pages worth of info that I want to keep handy at the table I just copy/paste it into OneNote rather than spreading myself thing between GoodReader, Dropbox, Docs to Go or other apps.

Edit: Oh, and I use Spotify for playlists and sound effects. Occasionally I use Youtube (for crawls) but then I generally keep the link in OneNote and just open it through there.

I use Evernote for just about everything, including EotE. I have an entire folder dedicated to Beyond the Rim and the Adventure, not to mention several notes on rules and other topics.

While Evernote has a Tablet App, I find it much easier to use my Laptop during session. As a note, my sessions are all pretty much VoIP, should I have the chance to run a F2F session, perhaps the Tablet would come in handing.

I do like the idea of AirPlay to Tablet any pictures and items during a F2F game, so this maybe something that would be useful. However, I find more use in a Laptop over a Tablet at this point.

In the end, do what ever works best for your group and your organisational style.

While Evernote has a Tablet App, I find it much easier to use my Laptop during session.

Same, the checkboxes specifically make it an excellent tool for keeping track of things in encounters.

I just find Evernote on iOS to be clunky an inelegant; believe me, I've tried it. :/

Exactly, I use the check boxes very nice on my Laptop....the best use I have found for EotE on iOS is that I can review my notes and thoughts that I have created on the computer. Great for a train ride home or otherwise, or when just sitting around prepping for a session.

Do not see any way to use the tablet during the game...

Do not see any way to use the tablet during the game...

Sadly, that's been my experience as well, and an have I tried. I've made a huge effort to become paperless but I can't wrangle my tablet in for gaming for more than just having my books available. I've tried using it for character sheets, notes, dice, etc and it's just too distracting/slow compared to a simple piece of paper.

i have thought about using the Tablet as a real prop - i.e. Datapad. Since I upgraded to a iPad Air, I now have a spare iPad and thought it would be cool to figure out a way to make this mirror a datapad. I could send information, and plot hooks to them on the datapad. Again, nothing more than a concept at this point, even more so since most of my EotE is via VoIP:

I have gone 95% paperless at this point. I could run the entire game from my Laptop (MacBook Air) which is almost like an iPad. I still find the need to have a piece of paper and pen nearby just to make some notes....these usually end up in trash after the session, but that is my lone connection to paper.

In my Evernote I link everything together and can bounce around pretty quick on the computer, but generally keep one note for in Game and this has a chart with all the PCs Strain and Wound, along with other notes that I make....this seems to work pretty good. Again, I could not make this work on my iPad.

i have thought about using the Tablet as a real prop - i.e. Datapad. Since I upgraded to a iPad Air, I now have a spare iPad and thought it would be cool to figure out a way to make this mirror a datapad. I could send information, and plot hooks to them on the datapad. Again, nothing more than a concept at this point, even more so since most of my EotE is via VoIP:

A few years back I did exactly this on a laptop. It would work much cooler on a touchscreen. I had a laptop with an image of a datapad on it. It was a custom website of mine. Players during play could click on various hotspots on the datapad to bring up galactic news, local news, navigation map, local maps, an in-universe encyclopedia, player logs, equipment inventory of their starship, a diary for a player that kept track of what they had done, and messages could be sent and received between game sessions. They looked up job offerings, saw who was on a bounty list, and commuicated with various NPCs (me) between sessions.

I thought I still had it online, but for the life of me I can't find it may have removed it.

I use an iPad in concert with Apple TV and a flatscreen. The Flatscreen is large, but also light, and I can move it easily up to the end of the dining table for game sessions.

Then, throughout the session, I use it as a visual aid. Maps, creature images, scene settings, it all goes up on the flatscreen. And I control it all with my iPad from the other end of the table. Easy, quick, and the players love it.

I have an iPad 1st gen still...and its clunky as all hell. I have all of my pdfs in iBooks and for some of the larger ones, it takes a good 10 seconds to load up a page when I try to navigate through the pdf. Is there a better resource for reading pdfs on iPad that might run faster? I like iBooks because I can easily sync up with iTunes and check/uncheck books/pdfs that I want for a session....unfortunately, because of the slow load times, its usually just faster to open the actual books. I end up just using it to play tracks from the Star Wars soundtracks, or for my Gathering Storm WFRP adventure...a long thunderstorm/rain track for background ambiance.

Can't afford a new one at this point, but will likely eventually get the retina mini, or the new Air.

I like the idea of sending info to a player datapad prop (could use my iPad 1 for that when I can afford to upgrade). But also really love the ease in which the Apple TV plays so well with my iMac and iPad...unfortunately, we don't play at my apartment (not enough room) and that's where all that stuff is set up. Ideally, a laptop would be my go-to tool, but with my 27" iMac being so dang expensive, its just not in the budget. So for now, its just pen/cil and paper for me...with published adventures, I tend to write myself a chronological outline with the occasional flow chart to show alternate possible player decisions. Running the last part of the last episode for Beyond the Rim tonight, and have to track events over time for a big scene, so I have a rough timeline sketched out in pen on printer paper...yay for oldschool!

i have thought about using the Tablet as a real prop - i.e. Datapad. Since I upgraded to a iPad Air, I now have a spare iPad and thought it would be cool to figure out a way to make this mirror a datapad. I could send information, and plot hooks to them on the datapad. Again, nothing more than a concept at this point, even more so since most of my EotE is via VoIP:

A few years back I did exactly this on a laptop. It would work much cooler on a touchscreen. I had a laptop with an image of a datapad on it. It was a custom website of mine. Players during play could click on various hotspots on the datapad to bring up galactic news, local news, navigation map, local maps, an in-universe encyclopedia, player logs, equipment inventory of their starship, a diary for a player that kept track of what they had done, and messages could be sent and received between game sessions. They looked up job offerings, saw who was on a bounty list, and commuicated with various NPCs (me) between sessions.

I thought I still had it online, but for the life of me I can't find it may have removed it.

I found it!

http://www.ourstead.com/holonet/

It was a work in progress. For example, I added stuff to the encyclopedia as the characters were about to encounter such.

i used to use evernote all the time for games, but switched to googledocs at some point. i share a lot of the gdocs with my players.

i also use a pdf reader (rulebooks and quick rules summary sheets),

as well as dropbox (i share dropbox with players, and that is where we put things like inspirational pictures, character/NPC portraits, etc. it often gets updated throughout the week outside our session times).

i tried using dicerollers, but really really prefer physical dice, even on a g+ game (we tilt cams down to see results often)

Other then the ones listed, I used once DMDJ. Good for ambient music and soundscore and few sound effects.

Cheers,

Ambiance is a great free tool with paid options. It allows you to play ambiant noise/music in the background (so you can use other apps at the same time). The tracks are infinite loops, so you don't get a jarring stop between tracks. There's also a great library for a lot of sounds.

I'm currently using it in a Wild Blue Fate game—supers in the wild (faerie) west—and have some good tracks on "speed dial". The free version allows you to have 3 tracks downloaded at once, while a small in-app purchase ($2.99) lets you have unlimited (I think).

-EF

Protip : if you guys are running android -- Grab Empire legends ... add your characters and couple it with Empire Dice.

This is a good PC tool because you can save all common rolls to empire dice and the empire legends portion of the app allows you to tap for strain and wounds and you can add all your skill points to it.

I cant reccomend it enough -- my only complaint is that we cannot sync up at the end of encounters so I can see that they are telling the truth or at lease get an idea of the damage they have sustained...

BUT

Empire Legends is legit as is Empire Dice. And you dont save your files on the server -- You sync to the holonet